Jim Stewart

Felix Left Behind

After William Kentridge

strange how you alone can see 
odd how no one sees
how we don’t see the world
is drawn line over line again
drawn over line again on the same
drawn on the same surface over again
charcoal over on the same paper

but live instead as if we pass
but act instead as if we live
but act as if we live distinct
as if we live through distinct frames
as if there’s different petrochemical cels 
thirty different universes each second
thirty different wipes of liquid pixels
different screens as if one
screen can leave the universe without
can exit without a how do you do

but of course we leave a trail
no we trail erasure marks
no like cosmic snails we drag
we leave a slimy chemical path 
we drop expired metrocards
exhale transparent gases
expel carbon dioxide and methane
crumpled grocery lists
former lovers’ numbers

or names alone in crumpled sheets
ice-blue water in our sheets
or water fills our sheets like canyons
our papers flutter over empty fields
papers cover our prone bodies
bodies turn to mountains in the water
bodies turn to lonely roads
his body turns away from the mirror
he will not see the woman in the mirror 
not see the woman in the calendar
the pages fall away she drinks
ice-blue water falls through her fingers
her body falls he will not see
her fingers to face and breast

the lines appear around her wounds
lines are drawn around her body
orange lines around our bodies fill
chalk lines fill the mind of God
orange lines trace the movement of the earth
bloody shadows fill the earth 
around our bodies water fills
water spills from heavenly faucets
constellations form into a body
stakes pierce the earth around the body
water fills the earth between the stakes
the body is a mountain in the water

odd how he doesn’t see
odd how no one sees
tired bodies walking across the white page
ghost bodies stumbling over the same surface
over line over line again over
charcoal on the same paper